Finally a window!

By Tim Moore and Rob Smith

Finally, after weeks of the blow, a window of opportunity this weekend. With beautiful tides, and the winds dying off, this is the weekend to hit the blue water and hit it hard. While the billabongs are still producing, across the coastal areas close to home it's the pelagics gorging themselves that's captured the attention of fishos.

With the winds finally dropping to 'fishable' and the cold water well and truly here to stay, there's no time like the present to hit the blue stuff.

Tuna, macks, skinnys and GT's are all about in good numbers. Larrakeyah rock wall, Six Mile Buoy, Lee Point, Mandorah, Weed reef, Stokes Hill and East Point are all hot. Poppers, chromies, jigs, plastics, hard bodies and bait; anything really. It's almost at a stage where we simply need to say; "Dump your boat in the water, putter out a few metres and start casting."

Seeing it's an hour long show, we'd better give you a little more than that though. So with Pelagics our main focus, we called in the big guns. And the team read like this: Watson, De With, Zeroni, Blue and Voukalous.

Those fish that tuned in have now fled the harbour and are seeking refuge in the Atlantic Ocean.

First up was Keith Watson, on route to Hardies Lagoon, with reports from across the billabongs.

"It was looking good out at 2 mile, the road in was particularly good," he said.

"We got a nice fish on a popper as soon as we got there, and lost some good keepers to the snags, then it slowed up a bit after that, but the fish were still around.

"I've also heard good reports from Hardies, so we're off there this morning," he said.

Warren had some new tips as well for the cooler weather.

"This weekend's tides, coinciding with the lighter weather is looking great," he said.

"I'd be going into the Daly or the Roper. Some people have been working the weed beds in the big river systems at the moment, particularly the one's that are exposed at low tide.

"I think they warm the water as a result once they are submerged and that's where the bait and barra are holding.

"In the Vic in the dry season you'll find a lot more fish around the shallow rocks that get exposed as well. They act as a conductive influence as well once submerged," he said.

That's were the billabong talk ended and the blue water started.

Pete Zeroni's a man who starts to salivate at this time of the year. He shared some useful advice on where to take the kids these school holidays, but that was just for fun really. Because when the winds die down, the water temp drops and the tides are clear, Peter Zeroni becomes a speed demon.

Like a bunch of Jesuits hungry for spiritual guidance, we stopped, looked up and listened.

"You can never bring that lure in too fast, in fact try not to even jig the lure it only slows it down," he said.

"Ahhh," we said.

"Focus on getting your boat in the right position for a drift past, that's a really important key, you need to make sure you have the right drift line or you can forget about it," he said.

"Ahhh," we remarked.

"They will sit on the pressure side of the structure, like jewies. You need to pick up the school on your sounder," he said.

"Ahhh," we gushed.

"I love the pink colours," he said. We hung up on him.

Blue has a big red beard and tattoos. He looks scary, but he isn't. Blue is a Territory fisherman.

"I've been having as bad a week as blokes with boats in this wind," he said.

"It makes it hard all round, but when the going gets tough, I go to East Point. Whichever way the wind's blowing, you can find somewhere with the wind at your back.

"I had a crazy few hours at Mandorah yesterday though with every rod going off with metre plus Queenies smashing anything that moved. Furiously throwing chromies around early has been a great way to warm up and has produced the goods but livies on the bottom were going off too," he said.

Ron Voukolous had a contribution to the land based party as well.

"I called Matty West yesterday afternoon and caught him in the middle of a triple hook up of Queenies of Larrakeyah rock wall, and on his way home, he apparently got stitched up by a couple of Barra around Fort Hill Wharf," he said.

"There's been reports of good Tuna catches in the harbour as well with fish pushing 12 kilo. Inland, Hardies has been going Ok. I heard of one mob who got a dozen fish up to 70cm and Shady fresh is still flowing as they plugged up the second barrage, and there's reports of Barra in the 90's coming out of there.

"If all else fails though, just head out to Six Mile Buoy and hook a porpoise of a mackeral like Tom Kontis!" he said.